


sister, don't let go of us

by sleeplessmiles



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Drinking, Gen, post 2x10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 04:30:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3276827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleeplessmiles/pseuds/sleeplessmiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz and Skye sneak out of the base for a drink and some much needed breathing room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sister, don't let go of us

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my drafts, in bits and pieces, for an almost embarrassing amount of time now, but I felt especially compelled to finish it this week after seeing the new promo (!!!!).
> 
> Hope you enjoy!! 
> 
> (any and all mistakes are mine)

 

When he finds her, she's sprawled out on the Bus holotable.

It’s a bit odd really, Fitz thinks, that he’d immediately known exactly where she'd be. She’d only been 'released' (read: they finally managed to convince her she didn't pose a risk to anyone around her, leaving her no further reason to lock herself away) that morning, and no one had really seen her all day. She could have been anywhere on the entire base. So it’s a bit strange that he’d been so utterly convinced he’d find her here.

But then, he and Skye have always had this in common. Places haven’t ever felt like home for them – not really. Not until the Bus.

They made their home in this very plane. In other people. 

And then those people _left._

(He wonders if her happy place feels as hollowed out and empty as his does now.)

Shaking off those heavier musings, he clears his throat to get her attention, leaning casually on the doorframe. Then he straightens up again because good _God_ man, since when have you been able to pull off a casual lean? Idiot.

Skye sits up slightly at the sound – just enough to see who it is – before her eyes widen and she sits up more fully.

‘Fitz,’ she says. She seems surprised. He bites back a wince at the uncertainty in her tone.

_Just spit it out, idiot._

‘I was – I was thinking maybe we could have a drink,’ he starts, holding up the beers he carries, one in each hand. Skye immediately blanches at the sight, colour running from her face alarmingly fast, and she casts her eyes downward for a moment.

‘You really think I should be drinking?’ she asks, and her voice is flat and bitter but when she looks up at him again, her eyes are pleading. It’s a cry for help, and it’s all too familiar to Fitz – he remembers the exact same expression staring back at him in the mirror for months and months on end.

He swallows thickly.

‘I checked your charts, you should be right.’ He grins a little then, surprising himself. ‘As long as you don’t go getting trashed on me, hey.’

Skye shoots him a grateful smile, one that doesn’t quite reach her eyes before slowly fading off her face again.

‘Technically,’ he goes on, hurriedly preempting the refusal he’s pretty sure she’s about to voice, ‘I’m not meant to be drinking so much myself. So maybe we just won’t tell Jemma.’

‘Look, Fitz, I appreciate – ’

‘ – Skye,’ he says finally, tone infused with the firmness of everything he won’t say. He won’t let her withdraw, impose this self-isolation. Not like he did.

He won’t let her punish herself.

She considers him for a long, quiet moment, and he can see the very second she relents.

‘Alright. Hop up,’ she offers, scooting over on the holotable and patting the space next to her.

But Fitz has a plan. The hardest part was always going to be convincing her. He’s got it from here.

‘Nah, I’ve got a better idea,’ he tells her. When she looks at him inquisitively, he jerks his chin towards the doorway, grinning.

‘C’mon, I’ll show you.’

 

-

-

 

‘Now, I know it’s not really dark enough just yet, but wait ‘til it is. You’re going to love it,’ Fitz insists, rushing to spread a blanket out on the grass.

They’re just outside one of the back exits of the Playground, in a sort of courtyard-y area he’d discovered one night when he couldn’t sleep. ‘Courtyard’ is probably too generous a term, actually, since it’s mostly just unkempt lawn, but there are also a handful of scattered trees around the outside border, almost as an afterthought. As far as he can tell, the place wasn’t even part of the original design of the base; rather, it seems as though they’d changed their mind during construction, integrating this planned section elsewhere and simply neglecting to fill the space.

He’s always liked that about it. Barely considered, then immediately forgotten.

Skye had been suspicious of where he was leading them at first (‘This is getting weird now. Should I be worried?’), but the closer they’d gotten, the quieter she’d become. So, naturally, Fitz has taken to nervously narrating his actions in order to fill the slightly uncomfortable silence.

‘We’re not exactly allowed to be out here, I think,’ he continues, ‘but I get the impression May’s been covering for me? So we should be fine.’ 

Finished with the arrangement of his old blanket (he’d grabbed it straight off his bed; while he prefers to sit on the grass, he isn’t sure whether Skye’d be that into it), he turns around to find that she’s smiling gently, looking the courtyard in muted wonder. But there’s a weird quality to her face that he can’t quite identify, and it immediately sets him on edge.

‘What? What’s wrong?’ 

She blinks slowly across at him, and something feels like it plummets in Fitz's stomach as he realises. Oh, crap, what if she isn’t ready for open spaces yet? What if it makes her feel uncomfortable? Shit. And he pressured her into this, too. He messed up, oh God, he really messed up –

‘You hate it, don’t you?’

Skye huffs a startled laugh. ‘What?’

‘I knew it. We can go back to the plane, honestly, it doesn’t really even – ’

‘ – _Wow,_ ’ she exclaims loudly over the top of him, eyebrows raised. ‘Overreact much?’

Fitz falls silent, unsure whether or not to be hopeful at that. She rolls her eyes with a barely discernible sigh, walking over to face him more fully.

‘Fitz. It’s great. Seriously. I was just…’ she runs a hand through her hair, laughing a little and gazing around fondly. ‘I used to come out here at night to think. Like, ages ago, but still.’

He blinks at that, mouth hanging open a little. ‘Really?’

She gives him an incredulous look. Fitz just shakes his head.

‘Nuh. No way. You’re having me on.’

‘Pretty boring thing to joke about,’ she deadpans, walking over and flopping down onto the grass slightly across from the blanket. A grin tugs at the corners of his mouth.

_Of course she prefers to feel the ground these days._

(Fitz privately thinks Skye’s newfound abilities are pretty much the coolest thing ever, but he figures he’ll wait a little longer before telling her as much again. The first time didn’t go so well.)

‘How come I’ve never seen you here, then?’ he accuses playfully, sitting down next to her and reaching across for the mini-cooler. ‘Spying on me from the shadows, were you?’

‘You wish, perv.’

‘Sounds like you’re the perv,’ Fitz mutters under his breath, eyebrows raised. She only snorts in reply, but it’s such a dramatic improvement on her recent mood that he finds his spirits buoyed by it.

Then he has to go and ruin things by handing her a beer.

Maybe it was a little naïve of him, but he’d honestly thought he’d helped her over this hurdle back on the Bus just before. Her actually being here had seemed to signal that she's okay with the drinking thing. Instead, she just stares at the bottle for the longest time, rolling it between her fingers contemplatively.

He can understand her hesitation. He’d witnessed the fear in her eyes every time she lost control in the beginning; how wild she’d felt, how raw.

He gets it.

Finally, she moves, twisting off the top in one swift motion.

‘You don’t have to drink, you know,’ he tells her quietly, meeting her gaze. ‘Honestly. We can just sit here.’

‘I know. But you said you looked at my charts and,’ she shrugs. ‘I trust you.’ She says it so flippantly, as though it’s plain, indisputable fact, that Fitz is positively staggered.

Then he realises she's nicked his line. He splutters a little, indignant.

‘Yeah, well, I trust you, too,’ he shoots back, voice defensive. ‘That’s the point I was making with all this.’ 

She narrows her eyes. ‘Wait, so you’re the only one who gets to make a heartfelt declaration?’

‘This was _my_ grand sweeping gesture! I planned it and everything. Find your own.’

Disbelief is etched into her every feature, but there’s a smile slowly creeping across her face.

‘How about this?' she offers finally. 'We both use it. It belongs to both of us.'

‘Yeah,’ he agrees, voice quiet and suddenly serious. ‘Both of us.’

Meeting her eyes significantly, he holds out his beer. She gladly clinks her own against it. Then, shutting her eyes and scrunching up her face in a way that's almost definitely unnecessary, she tilts the bottle and takes a large gulp.

They wait.

And wait. 

... And wait.

After about a minute's passed with no seismic activity, Skye slowly opens her eyes – bit by painstaking bit. She blinks a few times, looking around in amazement, before looking across at Fitz with such unadulterated joy on her face that he has to laugh.

'What'd I tell you, hey?'

'Know-it-all,' she mutters, taking another sip, and Fitz just laughs again. He leans back onto his elbows and gazes up at the rapidly darkening sky, taking a slow drink from his own beer.

They're quiet for a while then, lost in their own thoughts and the calm of the approaching night. Skye's the one to eventually break the silence.

‘It was just after you woke up,' she confides. It takes Fitz a couple of moments to realise Skye’s speaking to him, and few more for his brain to catch up with what she’s actually talking about. 

_Coming out here to think. Right._

‘God, everyone was just so trapped in their own heads. We couldn’t get through to each other.’ She twists her lips bitterly at the memory, taking another swig from her beer. ‘Really didn’t think we’d be back there again.’

He feels like he should challenge that comparison but really, he doesn’t have much idea about what that period was like for everyone else. Because yeah, he _was_ trapped inside his own head. And yeah, everyone’s been in a lot of personal pain lately, too.

The difference now though, he thinks, is that they’re _trying_. They’re fighting – not only for themselves, but for each other. That’s not nothing.

‘I don’t know how you did it, Fitz,’ she sighs, putting her beer on the ground and reclining fully on the grass. She raises her hands above her head, stretching lazily, and he can’t look away; it’s probably the least self-conscious she’s seemed in her own body since they’ve returned from the temple. The ghost of normalcy is so tantalising, and he’s feeling heady with it.

After a while, when he notices the expectant way she’s looking back at him, he blinks – hard – and tries to remember what she’d asked.

‘Ah, yeah. How I – how I did what?’

‘Recovered,’ she says. He frowns a little. ‘I mean, look at you.’

_But that’s…_

‘But I didn’t _do_ it.’ Off her confused look, he shakes his head and clarifies. ‘I’m still doing it. Every day. It’s not – it’s a process.’

Skye stares at him for the longest time, eyes wide and unfathomable, and he wonders if he’s said something wrong. He fully believes in his words – it’s taken him about this long to recognise that recovery is a process, rather than a singular event – but perhaps that wasn’t exactly the response she was looking for. Worrying at the label of his beer with a thumb, he tries not to let her silent gaze unnerve him too much.

Finally, with a grunt, she pushes herself up onto her elbows so that she can take another sip of her drink. Then, she sits up completely and turns to regard him more fully.

‘I’m sorry,’ she intones, heartbreakingly serious, and it’s so unexpected and catches him so off-guard that all he can do is gape at her in response. She closes her eyes, pained.

‘I was terrible to you after you woke up. No, shut up, I was.’

(He wants so badly to interrupt anyway, to tell her _no one was more terrible to me than **me** ,_ but her face is almost wild with the need to get this out. So he bites his tongue.)

‘All I kept thinking about was that Italian train job. You know? You had that moment where you just…’ She half-clenches her hand into a fist in front of her face, trying to articulate it, before giving up and focusing on him again.

‘That was _you_. Leopold Fitz, taking down Hydra with his bare hands.’

 _That was me, Leopold Fitz, sending one of my only friends off to her death,_ is what he thinks. He swallows down the now-familiar pang of guilt, ignoring the bitter flavour.

‘And then to see you lose that… it was devastating, Fitz. I know I don’t get to say that, it didn’t happen to me, but it was on your face all the time and I knew you didn’t want pity and I didn’t know how – ’

‘ – Skye.’

His voice must be pretty firm, because she cuts herself off immediately. He takes a deep breath.

‘I _didn’t_ lose it. Not really.’

She looks across at him, gaze steady but so intensely _pleading_ , and he realises that this could be the most important thing he says to her. He and Jemma have held her through her panic attacks, coaxed her through her loss of control, kept her company in her self-imposed solitude, but this is the moment, right here.

It’s vital that he doesn’t mess it up.

‘I used to think like that. You know: that’s it, game over.’ With a shaky exhale, he glances across to ensure he has her undivided attention.

(He does, because _of course_ he does.)

‘But my life isn’t over. Just – it just changed up a bit. And that’s a big difference.’

It’s such a personal thing for him to say – _God_ , it’s so personal that it feels like he’s ripping it up from the inside of his ribcage. He’s had this buried deep inside him for so long, hardly daring to pollute the air with it, to drag others down with him. But it’s worth it, for Skye. _She’s_ worth it. So he holds her eye contact now, desperately needing her to understand.

Then, after a few long, agonising seconds, Skye nods a little and Fitz knows he got through to her. Maybe she doesn’t believe it just yet, but she can see what he’s getting at.

And that’s enough.

Breaking the moment somewhat, she shoots him a wry grin. ‘You know, for a grumpy little guy, you sure are uplifting when you want to be.’

Fitz smiles around his beer, despite himself. 

‘Hey, don’t you go spreading that around,’ he warns, pointing an accusing finger at her.

The grin on her face is suddenly the closest thing to goofy abandon he’s seen on her in months, all lopsided and childish, and he feels himself returning it almost instinctively. ‘Cross my heart,’ she swears, making the motion with her thumb.

 

-

-

 

They sit there in contented silence for a while, taking the occasional swig from their beers as the night settles comfortably around them. Every so often Skye will finish up her drink, and there’s always a short pause before she nudges Fitz to grab her another one – almost as though she’s taking stock of herself, subtly testing for any loss of control. Surprisingly, it doesn’t break his heart as much as it might’ve even a week ago, because she’s not doing it in a panic anymore. She’s doing it as a regular, normal sort of thing, like it’s just a general body function.

Like it’s part of her.

He smiles to himself at that, looking up at the sky.

_It really is a nice sort of night._

‘D’you remember what else I said on that mission?’ he asks eventually, voice hoarse from lack of use. He clears it as subtly as he can.

She shoots him a sly look. ‘What, that you’d hate to meet the poor guy who’s a human 0-8-4?’

‘Oh, come on!’ he complains loudly over her snickering. ‘That’s hardly fair.’

‘Your words, not mine.’

‘Pssh.’

Something rustles in one of the little trees over by the wall and both of them instinctively freeze, only to relax a moment later when a bird takes to the sky in a hurry.

(Fitz relaxes, anyway; Skye’s still pretty tense. He doesn’t call attention to it, though.)

‘I mean it, though,’ he says after a while, knocking his shoulder into hers. He’s never really done that before, but Skye seems to do it to him and Jemma an awful lot. It’s a thing, right? ‘Do you remember?’

Skye stays silent.

‘I said: whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. Like we always do.’

She’s staring up at the sky, at the smattering of stars now visible through the haze of the city lights, and her eyes are suspiciously glassy.

‘We will, Skye,’ he insists quietly. ‘You and me, and Jemma, and May, and… we’ll deal with it. We’ve got you.’

There’s the longest of pauses, before she pulls in a deep, rattling breath.

‘Do you still believe that?’

‘I do,’ he replies simply.

And he does. There’s no rhyme or reason to this, his blind faith, but it’s there. They’ll look after Skye because it’s _Skye_. An alternative doesn’t exist. Not to him, not to anyone who matters.

She sighs shakily, then surprises him by shuffling closer and dropping her head onto his shoulder. It’s kind of a jarring sensation – the only other person who’s ever done this is Jemma, and so Fitz is used to the feel of Jemma's head there, the slope of Jemma's neck. This is pretty foreign to him. Even so, he tentatively leans his head down to rest on top of Skye’s, exhaling softly.

‘I was so angry, for so long,’ she murmurs, before huffing out a breathy laugh. ‘I kept waiting for something big to happen, which seems, I don’t know. Ironic or something, now.’

He makes a little sound in understanding, and she shakes her head a bit against his shoulder.

‘I just needed something to separate the before and after. We just – _ugh_ – we just slid into this, you know? We’re threatened by Hydra one day, and then it’s _every day_ , and then suddenly we’ve got Ward – ’

She falls abruptly into silence; the type that’s thin enough and fragile enough that a heavy exhale is all that's needed to shatter it. But, Fitz thinks, perhaps this is the type that’s meant to be broken. Perhaps this is how all of their more hardened, prolonged silences begin – as weak, frail things just begging to be destroyed and rebuilt. Perhaps this time, if they catch it early enough, they can forge the pieces into something they can use.

‘Do you miss him?’ Fitz asks, feeling unsteady from the honesty of the moment. Skye doesn’t move away, leaving her head nestled on his shoulder as she turns the question over in her mind. 

‘I miss what could have been,’ she decides finally. ‘What we could have had.’

He hums in agreement. That makes sense. They’d all fallen for each other, into this weird family… _thing_ , way too hard and too fast for anyone to properly sort through the boundaries of it. They hadn’t made sense of it yet. But they could have, with time. Like they are now.

They could have. 

‘Well personally, I miss his shoulders,’ he sighs wistfully.

Skye coughs out a startled laugh, sitting up so that she can see his face.

‘What? I have eyes, you know. The man has the physique of a bloody Adonis.’

She just grins at him, shaking her head in disbelief. It’s not even remotely enough to cover the great expanse left by Ward’s sudden exit from their lives, just as they’re yet to discover anything to stretch across the Trip-shaped chasm that’s opened up in their very souls.

But it’s all they’ve got.

‘Alright, nerd,’ she says, voice scrambling desperately for flippant but falling mere finger-lengths short. He appreciates the hell out of the effort anyway. ‘Know any constellations you can teach me?’

Fitz makes a face. ‘Actually, yeah.’ 

Skye looks across at him, scrutinising his odd expression.

‘Why’s your face so weird?’

‘Now, that’s a bit rude. My face is just fine, thank you very much.’

‘Wow, way to deflect.’ She narrows her eyes a little more. ‘There’s a story here.’

He hesitates before responding. That’s his fatal error. 

‘Oooh, it’s an _embarrassing story_.’

‘No it’s not,’ he defends, with a defensive tone and defensive posture and ah, yeah, he’s screwed.

‘Okay, now you _have_ to tell me.’

‘It’s nothing,’ he insists, mind racing furiously. There is absolutely no way of telling this story that doesn’t make it sound like he’s been in love with Jemma Simmons for almost a decade.

But Skye’s waiting expectantly, the ghost of a laugh still on her face, and shit. Okay. Okay.

‘I learnt them years ago,’ he begins tentatively.

‘Yeah?’ 

‘To impress… a girl.’ 

‘A girl,’ Skye repeats, voice flat, and it’s clear she knows that it’s Jemma. He still has no idea how the girls do this, but they’ve always had this sort of sixth sense when it comes to one another. It’s freaky as hell, but he’s glad to see the return of it.

‘Well I’m not going to tell you if you’re going to be like that,’ he huffs.

‘Hey, I was promised blackmail material. I’m not leaving ‘til I get it.’

He splutters. ‘You – you can’t use this as – there’s a code of silence, here! There’s, this is a _sacred_ – ’

‘ – better start talkin’ then, big guy,’ she teases, and her eyes are sparkling in a way that’s so unbelievably _Skye_ that Fitz finds himself simply staring dopily at her for a few moments.

‘Fine, fine,’ he acquiesces, his tone long-suffering. ‘All you pushy bloody SHIELD women.’

‘Stop stalling!’ she accuses, shoving at his shoulder.

‘Alright. There was a girl.’

‘We’ve established there was a girl, yes.’

He gapes. ‘Do you want the story or not?’

‘Aw, you know I do,’ she says, and she’s mocking him a little but he can’t bring himself to care when she’s this lighthearted. He looks at her in warning for a few moments longer (she just blinks back, the very picture of innocence), before deciding to go all-in.

(If there exists something in this world that Leopold Fitz wouldn’t do to keep his friends smiling, he’s yet to find it.)

‘I had two hours notice to try to learn every constellation, because she invited me star-gazing and of course I had to go put my foot in it, telling her how much I loved star-gazing – ’

‘ – To impress her?’ Skye asks, biting back a grin. He rolls his eyes heavenward.

‘I thought I was doing great. She had this…’ he trails off, unsure how to adequately describe the expression that had adorned Jemma’s face as he’d attempted to map out the stars for her. It transcended description, really. He can still remember it in vivid technicolour (which is something of a cruelty, he thinks, considering all the stuff he’s lost since the accident), and he’d assumed it was doe-eyed wonder at the time. He’d honestly thought he was doing spectacularly well, bewitching her even a fraction of the amount she had bewitched him.

Of course, in hindsight, he’s realised he missed the knowing glint in her eyes, but, you know. You see what you want to see.

‘I thought she was in awe.’

‘But?’ Skye prompts.

He brings a hand up to the back of his neck. ‘Well, I didn’t actually remember them all so I started making them up?’ 

‘Uh oh.’

‘Don’t jump ahead.’

‘You started bullshitting?’

‘Hey, there are a lot of constellations! I’d like to see you bloody try,’ he complains, but her grin is already impossibly broad.

‘Leopold Fitz, smooth-talkin’ the ladies with his made up constellations.’

‘I just wanted…’ _to keep her face looking like that_ , he finishes mentally. _She was outside of herself. I just wanted her to have that for as long as possible._

Skye’s delighted, taking a sip of her beer.

‘So Sim – the girl, she called your bluff?’

Fitz sighs. ‘She knew every damned constellation herself. Has since she was a kid.’

Skye bursts out laughing, and he manages to resist for an admirable amount of time before he’s joining in too. He always does, with Skye. Jemma’s been his pied piper from day one, but Skye’s got the kind of laugh that makes you desperately want to share in the joke.

‘You wouldn't  _believe_ how long she let me crap on for.’

‘I really think I would, though. She’s diabolical.’

They’re interrupted then by the gentle, telltale creak of the door and a startled exclamation.

‘Oh!’ 

Both of their heads snap towards the base, only to see the petite scientist herself standing there uncomfortably, shuffling from foot to foot.

‘Busted,’ Skye mutters, but it’s very half-hearted. They both know Jemma can't bring herself to deny Skye a thing these days.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you two were out here.’

Skye shoots a quick look at Fitz before turning back to Jemma. ‘Always room for one more.’

Jemma quickly takes in the situation before her, eventually settling on giving them a sad smile and holding up the whiskey bottle in her hand. ‘Fancy something stronger?’

Fitz raises his eyebrows; Skye lets out a low, impressed whistle, patting the ground on the other side of her. ‘ _Now_ we’re talking.’

Visibly pleased, Jemma wanders over and awkwardly folds her legs under herself to sit on the grass. She then takes a long swig straight from the bottle. That sort of night, apparently.

‘Fitz was just telling me how he once learnt all the constellations to get laid – ’ 

‘ – _that’s not what I said_ – ’ 

‘ – but the girl already knew them all and called him out when he made half of them up.’

Jemma just hums contentedly in the back of her throat at that, eyes sparkling with mirth as she stares up at the stars. 

‘Is that so.’

‘Years from now,’ Skye begins dramatically. She's a bit tipsy. ‘The poets will write sonnets of the tragedy that is Leopold Fitz’s love life.’

‘Piss off,’ he retorts, at the same time that Jemma says, ‘That’s probably a bit harsh.’ Fitz suddenly can’t tear his eyes away – it’s been eons since they’ve spoken over each other like that. Skye just looks between the two of them a couple of times, eventually smiling to herself.

‘I think,’ Jemma begins, her eyes briefly flicking over to Fitz’s face before looking back to the sky. ‘The girl was probably quite charmed by it, truthfully. It sounds like an awfully sweet gesture.’

He’s gaping at her. He knows he’s gaping at her, jaw hanging open stupidly.

‘Besides, she got to show off a little, didn’t she? She probably had a brilliant evening, all up.’

‘Aww!’ Skye coos in a falsely enthusiastic voice, shuffling on her bum a little to get more comfortable. ‘You guys are gross!’

‘Says the one who exploded the hand sanitiser _everywhere_ the other day,’ Jemma replies primly, passing the whiskey over to Fitz. Skye throws her head back and laughs, and it’s such a pure, uninhibited sound that both Fitz and Jemma find themselves automatically grinning.

‘Where’d you even get this?’ Fitz asks once he's had a drink, squinting at the bottle’s label. It looks pretty expensive – not that he’d have a damn clue, of course, but even so. 

‘Lance.’

Skye snorts.

‘What?’ Jemma demands, immediately defensive. ‘It’s true.’

‘Bullshit! There’s no way he just gave this to you.’

‘There is, and he did.’

Skye levels her with a critical look, one that Jemma tries admirably to stare down, but she's already squirming a little. Fitz can pinpoint the exact moment she relents, which he finds oddly comforting – she may be unnervingly good at lying these days, but she’s still completely unable to keep it out of her posture. Her shoulders sag the second she gives up. 

‘And if it just so happened that I waited until May was in the kitchen to ask him…’ she finally provides, trailing off with a cheeky smile across at them.

‘Jemma Simmons! You are a manipulative little shit,’ Skye announces.

Jemma’s incredibly proud of herself.

‘Mmm, I rather am, aren’t I.’

She passes Skye the whiskey bottle then – unprompted – with a sort of familiarity that speaks to more than just the few times they’d done this back on the Bus, and Fitz gets the feeling the two of them probably did their fair share of commiserating back in the early days of his recovery.

(He hopes they did, anyway.)

‘You know,’ Jemma begins after a while, voice soft and thoughtful. Fitz can feel his heart in his throat all of a sudden. He’s never been able to deal with the combination of Jemma Simmons and starlight – it’s simply too entrancing. She looks to the skies with such an incredibly humbled gaze, sees the beauty of the universe in every star, every speck. Then she looks back to Earth and sees the echoes of the universe’s vastness in the most mundane of things, truly awestruck by simply being a part of the enormity of it all.

Fitz has never seen these echoes of which she speaks – or he hadn’t, he thinks, until he met her. He looks back to Earth now and sees Jemma Simmons, in all her celestial brilliance, and he thinks, yeah.

 _Yeah_. 

Skye gently nudges Jemma with an elbow after her silence stretches on too long, and it’s suddenly clear to Fitz just how much of the whiskey she’d consumed before venturing out into the night; she’s not too sloppy at this point, but she’s a little absent.

 _Well on her way, then._ He reaches for the bottle again himself.

‘Oh, I was just… I used to come out here all the time, you know. Back when we first got here.’

Fitz freezes, looking across at Skye as his lips pull into a disbelieving grin. The same expression is dancing across Skye’s face, her eyes alight with amusement. Jemma’s looking between the two of them, confused.

‘What? What is it?’

He rubs the back of his neck with one hand. ‘It’s just… I come out here all the time myself.’

‘So do I,’ Skye adds. ‘Or, I did. Whatever. But still.’ 

Jemma looks between them a few more times, searching for some sign that they’re messing with her, before a brilliant smile creeps across her face. She breathes out a light laugh, shaking her head.

Christ. They’ve just been _so bad at this_.

‘All at different times,’ Skye drawls, and she’s not bitter, exactly, but she’s not _not_ bitter either. She grabs the bottle and takes a swig, passes it along to Jemma.

‘We must have just missed each other,’ Jemma muses, resting the bottle against her collarbone. ‘Seems to be a rather lot of that going around lately.’ 

They all lapse into silence at that, staring up at the sky and letting the truth of her words envelop them for a little while.

‘Did you ever guess that it would turn out like this?’ Jemma asks into the night, her voice nearly a whisper, and Fitz knows it’s the question lingering on all of their minds. It’s too easy to look at the sky and recall a simpler time, back when that used to be their home. Back before betrayal and heartbreak, before alien viruses and life and death decisions.

Back before the temple.

‘You mean did I ever think I’d become a literal superhero?’ Skye replies eventually, bitter sarcasm dripping from her every syllable.

Everyone knows this is a sticking point for her. Lance was the first to make the mistake of actually calling her a hero, and they'd all learned their lesson that day. At a very high volume. She positively recoils from the term, insisting it’s something of which she’s not at all capable. Of which she’s not at all _worthy_.

She’s wrong, though. Fitz is absolutely certain that she is. There’s nothing she has to live up to – she’s already more than enough as she is. She’s _Skye,_ and Skye is enough. He just wishes he had the words to explain that to her.

But, as has increasingly been the case lately, Jemma’s on the same wavelength as him. She hums for a moment before speaking quietly.

‘We’ve always considered you to be something of a hero, Skye. I think the rest of the world is just finally catching up.’

Fitz exhales slowly, allowing the sheer truth of her words to sink in.

Because that’s it, isn’t it? That’s all there is to it.

At the sound of quiet sniffling, he looks across at the girls, only to find that Skye’s cheeks are tear-streaked. Jemma’s already reaching an arm around her shoulders, offering a one armed hug that Skye gladly reciprocates, snuggling in to rest against Jemma’s shoulder. For his part, Fitz simply shuffles closer, gripping onto Skye’s knee comfortingly.

Jemma looks across at him gratefully, holding his eye contact for the longest of moments before shifting to smile down at Skye once more. Her eyes are suspiciously glassy, even as she strokes a hand through Skye’s hair in comfort.

‘You see those three stars there?’ she asks, pointing out a section of the sky with her free hand. ‘Just across from the – ’

‘I see it,’ Skye mumbles. ‘What’s it s’posed to be?’

‘Zeus, according to Fitz.’

‘Oh, bugger off.’

‘He then proceeded to explain the entire plot of Hercules – the Disney movie, by the way, not actual Greek mythology – ’

‘And you bought it!’ he exclaims. ‘Did you tell her that? You ate it up.’ 

She’s scandalised now. ‘I did no such thing!’

‘You were _mesmerised_.’

‘Oh don’t flatter yourself! I was being nice – ’

‘ – And what happened _next_ , Fitz?’ he imitates in a breathy, high-pitched voice that he knows she’ll hate.

She scoffs. ‘Not even in your wildest fantasies have I ever sounded like that.’

‘Oh, like you could even handle my wildest fantasies.’

Her eyebrows are reaching for her hairline but oh God, she’s actually going to respond –

‘Children! Please!’ Skye interrupts from between them, waving her hands. Jemma’s suddenly beaming across at him, and she’s had a little to drink but he knows the warmth behind her smile is not alcohol-induced. He smiles back at her for what must be a ridiculous amount of time, feeling completely giddy.

God. That actually felt _normal_.

Then:

‘Can you tell me about them?’ Skye asks, her voice hushed and small. ‘The stars, I mean.’

‘Of course,’ Jemma murmurs, shifting on the spot a little. ‘Shall we start with the visible constellations, then?’

‘You’re the boss, doc.’

Swallowing back a small smile, Jemma launches into a detailed explanation of the stars – carefully outlining their scientific designations and any other tidbits she knows, before effortlessly weaving together the legends that have been mapped onto the skies for generations. Her voice is soft and mellifluous, and Fitz feels something loosen in his chest for the first time in months.

He feels content.

And later, after the air has turned from a comfortable, friendly freshness into a crisp chill; after Fitz has pulled the blanket over all three of them, tucking it in around them; after Jemma has dozed off against Skye’s side, gently snoring; after all of this, Skye meets his eyes with a quiet solemnity and mouths the most simple of phrases.

 _Thank you_.

Fitz can only smile back, unable to tear his eyes away from his two best friends.

All the myths of the constellations could never match up, anyway.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!! 
> 
> Also, extra special thanks to anyone who's put up with my bitching and moaning throughout the writing process. You know who you are. 
> 
> If you're interested, you can find me on tumblr at 'imperfectlychaotic.'


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